Cardinals shut out Eagles, 5-0

FAIRMONT – Fairmont Area goaltender Sadie Sandersfeld didn’t have to stop a ton of shots against the Windom Area Eagles hockey team.

But the freshman did stop all 17 of the Eagles’ scoring attempts to record her second career shutout and led the Cardinals to a 5-0 nonconference win at Martin County Arena on Tuesday night.

“I would say that goaltending led the way for us tonight,” said Fairmont Area head coach Scott Kuhl. “Sadie played very well tonight and stayed focused throughout the game which was important.”

The Cardinals jumped on top of the Eagles early, giving Sandersfeld a cushion to work with.

Brooke Lemon needed only 47 seconds to send the puck into the back of the net in the first period.

After Myah Lytle carried the puck into the Eagles’ zone, she fired a pass to Tieryn Arens. Arens then slid a pass to Lemon in the slot and she fired a shot past Windom Area goalie Emily Steen.

Taylor Nuss then got some help from Lemon as she put the Cardinals up 2-0 in the first.

Lemon fired a pass behind the Eagles’ net, bouncing it off the boards and onto Nuss’ stick. The Cardinal center then wrapped a shot around the post to go ahead 2-0 with 11:50 left in the opening frame.

Before the announcer could even finish telling the crowd about the Nuss goal, Jalyssa Wilson lit the lamp eight seconds later.

Nuss fired a shot on net that Steen blocked with her leg for one of her 39 saves, but Wilsom charged in on the rebound and pushed the puck through for the score.

“I thought that our top two lines did a real nice job of producing goals for us tonight,” said Kuhl. “They were able to move the puck around and we got a lot of scoring, which was good.”

In the second, an offensive flurry helped Fairmont Area to take a decisive lead.

The Cardinals fired 19 of their 44 shots on goal in the middle frame, while the Eagles only got off six shots.

Two of the Cardinal shots, one from Lemon and one from Nuss, found the back of the net for a second time.

Lemon again didn’t waste any time scoring in the second.

Myah Lytle gained control of the puck at the blue line, and fired a pass to Logyn Cone. Cone carried the puck down the right wing before ripping a shot on net.

Steen made the save, but gave up a rebound and Lemon was there to bury the shot to go ahead 4-0 with 12:26 left in the period.

Jenna Klages blasted a shot from the point 40 seconds later that rebounded into the slot, where Nuss was looking for a shot and found it. Nuss smacked the shot just over Steen’s outstretched leg to make it a 5-0 lead.

“I think that we had nice puck movement tonight,” said Kuhl. “But once we got ahead and got a lead, we might have been moving it around too much and not shooting when we needed to. That’s something we’ll work on.”